[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, April 13-14

[Cait O'Hara]

Welsh ambassador

The cuckoo.  Logan, in his poem To the Cuckoo, calls it the “messenger of Spring,” but the Welsh ambassador means that the bird announces the migration of Welsh labourers into England for summer employment.
-- Ebenezer Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898

First Cuckoo Day
Around this date each year, a spontaneous celebration customarily broke out among English country fold upon hearing the first song of a cuckoo.  This tradition, which became formalized as an April 14 fair in Heatherfield, East Sussex, was accompanied by a specially brewed ale.  It was long believed that the cuckoo sang only from this date until St. John’s Day, June 24.




---
Never meddle in the affairs of dragons;
For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
-- Acacia



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